The SEPA direct debit mandate explained

Direct debit relies on trust that must be verifiable afterwards. For an ordinary consumer direct debit, your customer's bank does not check in advance whether you had permission; that check only comes when there is a complaint. Then you must be able to show what your permission was based on.

What a valid mandate must contain

A SEPA mandate is only complete with these details:

• Name and address of the creditor, the party that debits. If you collect through a payment service provider, that is that party.
• The creditor ID of the creditor.
• A unique mandate reference, which allows this one mandate to be traced.
• Name and IBAN of the customer.
• Whether it is a one-off or a recurring mandate.
• The date and the consent itself: a signature, or a digital action that is equivalent to one.

If one of these elements is missing, you have a problem in a dispute: the customer can reclaim their money for up to 13 months instead of 8 weeks.

Recurring or one-off

A one-off mandate applies to exactly one debit. If you use it a second time, that second collection is unauthorised.

A recurring mandate covers a series of debits and is what you need for subscriptions, contracts and maintenance plans. Mind the expiry period: if you collect nothing for 36 months, the mandate lapses. This matters for customers you invoice annually and skip once, or for a subscription that stays paused for a long time.

Digital consent is not the same as a mandate

This is where things go wrong most often in practice, and the distinction is worth having clear.

A first online payment is not a signed mandate. The most common route with a payment service provider is that the customer pays once via iDEAL, after which the provider records an authorisation and you can collect on an ongoing basis. That works fine technically, and almost the whole Dutch market does it this way. But it does not give you a formal authorisation in the sense of the SEPA rules: there is no signature and no mandate form with the details from the previous section.

What that means in practice: in a dispute you have no mandate to produce. You can show that a payment took place and that the customer agreed to your terms, but not that a signed authorisation existed. So assume your customer effectively keeps the full right of reversal, and set up your administration and cash flow accordingly.

A signed mandate is the formal route. If the customer signs a form containing the details listed above, you do have a mandate in the formal sense. In RCUR, from the Advanced plan you then enter the IBAN manually and put the customer straight into a subscription, without a first online payment. Keep that form in order: it is your only defence if things go wrong.

Which route suits you depends on what is at stake. For small monthly amounts charged to consumers, the conversion benefits of the payment route usually outweigh the evidence risk. For large amounts or long contracts, a signed mandate is worth considering. This is not legal advice; have your terms reviewed if a lot depends on it.

The advance notice

You must let your customer know in advance which amount you will debit on which date. The standard period is 14 calendar days, but you may agree a shorter period with your customer. This is usually done in the terms and conditions or the subscription agreement.

For a fixed amount on a fixed date you do not have to repeat this every month: one notice for the whole series is enough. If the amount or the date changes, you notify again. In practice you handle this with the invoice you are already sending.

Chargeback periods

This is the part that most often surprises businesses.

Situation	Period
Consumer direct debit with a valid mandate	8 weeks, no reason required
Direct debit without a valid mandate	13 months
Business direct debit (B2B variant)	No right of reversal

Two things to remember. First: a debit is never final during the first eight weeks. Do not count on the money as if it were already in. Second: a chargeback leaves your claim intact. The customer has their money back but still owes the amount; you have only lost your easiest means of collection. What you do next is covered in following up failed direct debits.

The business variant has no right of reversal, but imposes heavier requirements: your customer must be a business and their bank must register the mandate in advance. Not every payment service provider supports this.

What to keep

In a dispute you must be able to prove that a mandate existed and what it said. So keep, per customer:

• the mandate reference and the date it was given;
• the proof of consent: the first payment or the signed form;
• the advance notices you sent, usually your invoices.

As long as the mandates are properly recorded, a chargeback is an incident. Without that administration, every complaint is a discussion you cannot win.

How RCUR handles this

RCUR is a Mollie Gold Partner and collects through your own Mollie account. In practice that means:

• You do not need your own direct debit agreement or creditor ID, because the collection runs under Mollie's agreement.
• The authorisation is recorded through the first payment on a payment link. If you want a formally signed mandate, you enter the IBAN manually after your customer has signed.
• Invoices and notices can run along automatically through the integrations with Moneybird, Exact Online, WeFact, e-Boekhouden, HostFact and Teamleader.
• Payouts arrive in your own account; RCUR does not stand between you and your money.

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